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... I’m having a set of 36 spoke wheels built up for loaded touring. Those will have 37mm Top Contacts. It’s basically a back up of all the spare parts I had and a great deal on the second hand bike.
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I put the front derailleur bar-end on (an old one I had lying around as the rear one broke) to solve the problem of road brifters with a MTB crankset (wider BB). MTB front derailleur as well, of course. So brifter for braking, bar-end for shifting.
Rear brifter works normally.
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That makes sense.
My light touring bike is the bike I usually use if I expect most of my trip will be on pavement, not gravel. I run 37mm tires on that, works very well for loaded touring, and those tires are wide enough that they are passable for gravel too. The wheels on that bike are 36 spoke rear (disc) and 32 spoke front (rim brake). I did not plan it that way, but I was unable to find the front hub I wanted in 36 spoke, so went with 32. Since most of the weight is on back, I decided that 32 up front should be just fine. I suspected that it might take a few months to find the front hub I wanted in 36.
When I built up my randonneuring bike, I used a brifter for rear. But was unsure what to use for front shifter, so temporarily used a vintage Huret downtube friction shifter. Now 10 years later, I have decided that the downtube shifter is no longer temporary, still using the Huret. The older Campy brifter looks so much like an older Tektro brake lever that you have to look close to realize that the brake levers are different manufacturers.
